Re: The most important mathematical topics for understanding cryptography?

On Sun, 18 Jun 2006 01:25:33 GMT, "Joseph Ashwood" <ashwood@xxxxxxx>
wrote:
That is a particularly hard question, mostly because it is so broad. I'd say
the most important field of mathematics is logic, but that alone won't get
you much of anywhere. It is almost necessary to have a Masters Degree in
Mathematics just to understand the first 10% of what should be done (or at
least the whys), but you can do it with half of a high school education (Tom
started with this, but has exceeded this by a great deal since then).

So which area of cryptography is of interest?

I don't have a masters degree in math, but I am studying computer
science and my biggest hobby is programming. I have _used_
cryptography (or, implemented the HTTP Digest authentication method if
that counts), and I have long wanted to create great software for
regular Joes that use cryptography in some ingenious way (say
Freenet/Gnunet). I would also like to design my own cryptographically
secure RNG some day. That's the goals.

To tell you the truth, I am reading Applied Cryptography right now,
which fits my cryptography purpose well. But for many years I have
promised myself to learn more math, so I have decided I won't read any
more in AC (it's an enjoying read) until I have studied some
mathematical topic. That's why I want to learn some math topic that
will perhaps prove useful later on.

So... Other than CSRNG:s, I don't know. I had hoped some particular
topic would be especially useful to know, but apperantly cryptography
is harder than that!

Björn

-----
be#bjrn;se (GPG public key: 0x81DA4221)
.

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